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The Stone Passage

“When the heart’s electromagnetic field and any other organism’s magnetic field whether it has a ‘heart’ or not are in close proximity, the fields entrain or synchronize, and there is an extremely rapid and complex exchange of information. . . . In addition, as the two fields come together and synchronize, the process produces a combination field, in effect, two fields in one. And these two fields are, like all nonlinear oscillators, in harmony. They produce something that is more than the sum of their parts.” – Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants, 90

“Something very interesting happens when a group of jazz musicians improvise together. A number of separate individuals, all making their own decisions, act together as a whole. . . . When they tune into the group and become connected with it, it is as though the music itself plays through them.” – Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone, Active Hope, 100

“Everything in Nature ran according to its own nature; the running of the grass was in its growing, the running of rivers in their flowing, granite bubbled up, cooled, compressed and crumbled, birds lived, flew, sang and died, everything did what it needed to do, each simultaneously running its own race, each by living according to its own nature together, never leaving any other part of the universe behind. The world’s Holy things raced constantly together, not to win anything over the next, but to keep the entire surging diverse motion of the living world from grinding to a halt.” – Martin Prechtel, The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic, 9

I close my eyes and sink into the earth. An image awaits me: rocks stacked, and below them an opening. It is a portal into the belly of the earth. I shrink back, afraid, uncertain.

I open my eyes and see the message of the image—it’s time to go within. I glance around and see ants, ants walking, ants crawling. They go in through a stone passage. It is the image I saw. I was seeing through the eyes of an ant.

I roll onto my belly, feeling my body pressed onto the hot surface of the earth, and I close my eyes and let myself become an ant. I feel the tickle of an ant’s movements across my legs. I welcome it, and I let my mind wander.

Eventually, an image comes. I see a medallion, circular in shape, with ridges and lobes in an abstract pattern. There is movement there—within the etched lines of the medallion I see black specks walking, working. The image comes into focus and I realize they are ants. I am seeing into the ant hive, seeing the beautiful shape, the dark medallion, that they make with their whole. I watch the ants march, weaving a braid in their unity, their coherence. Together they weave the world.

Formerly I have been resistant to ants. In them I have seen an image of dullness, of the busy orientation towards work, task, duty. In the ant I have seen limitation—the limitation of the imagination as duty and drive take a determined hold. This image was an awakening. Through it I saw the ant not as a determined individual but as a cooperative whole. I heard them singing, heard each clacking its jaws and speaking in scent. What I saw was the friendship, community, and compassion of the whole.

I am left wondering about the stone portal of my vision, the gateway to the inner heart of earth. What I see from my ant’s eye is that to enter this, the portal to the Lower Realm, one must be small, very small indeed. One must exhibit the strength and humility that are the power and preserve of the smallest and lowest of ground-crawling ants. One learns that the secret of the earth, the secret of humility, is the humble gift of cooperation.

Builders of the Dawn

Builders of the Dawn is a radio series focusing on sustainability, right livelihood, and the emerging cooperative culture. It spotlights a region, the Klamath-Siskiyou range in southern Oregon and northern California, to showcase individuals who are making changes in their lives to make bigger changes in the world. These people, farmers, educators, permaculture teachers, ecologists, musicians, and activists are working to reconnect themselves to each other, to the wider web of life, and to the Earth. They are actively living a new story, building a culture of cooperation. Builders of the Dawn is produced by Ariel Blackbird for KAOS 89.3 FM Olympia.